This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. xc2xa7xc2xa7119 and/or 365 to 99 114 235.7 filed in Europe on Jul. 27, 1999; the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a photographic image acquisition device.
2. Background of the Invention
The invention relates to a photographic image acquisition device for photographic original images contained on a photographic medium.
Examples of photographic image acquisition devices are photographic copiers and photoelectric scanning devices. Photographic copiers (also referred to as xe2x80x9cprintersxe2x80x9d) copy or acquire the image carried on a photographic medium (e.g. film) by means of a detecting member, such as a photoelectric converter (photosensitive photographic paper). A photoelectric scanning device scans the photographic medium (e.g. film or photograph) and uses, as a detecting member, typically a photoelectric converting member such as a CCD. In order to simplify the understanding of the present invention, the following description refers to a photoelectric scanning device. However the disclosed features are also applicable to any other kind of photographic image acquisition device.
When producing photographic copies in modern copy devices, the copy originals the original images (so-called frames) contained on a developed photographic filmxe2x80x94are generally photoelectrically scanned in a pixel-by-pixel manner. The scanned values, thus obtained, are then evaluated for the actual copying process, in particular also for the control of the exposure. With the increasingly growing digital image production, originals are also photoelectrically scanned in a pixel-by-pixel manner having a very high resolution, wherein the scanned values represent all of the image information and are used for the photographic or print-technical recording on a carrier medium. During the scanning process, the film that contains the images to be scanned moves along a path through the scanning device, wherein each of the images is held in a scanning position and scanned in this position.
A requirement for the correct positioning of the images to be scanned is the knowledge of the local positions of the images on the film. In film types which do not have any information about the position of the images themselves, for example the well-known 135-films, the positions of the images (frames) on the film (e.g. relative to the beginning of the film or a section thereof) are determined by means of a separate image position detector (frame detector) based on photoelectric scanning, and the location information thus obtained, is transmitted to the film transport and positioning device in the scanning device. This can be carried out, for example, as described in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,235, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Furthermore, as it is commonly known that films themselves have no information about the location of the images contained thereon, the providing of notches in their side margin sections that have a defined local correlation to the individual images (frames) on the film is a common practice in photo finishing. These notches can then be used in other processing stages for the positioning of the image locations. Image location detectors based on photoelectric scanning are also used for the positioning of the film in the notching device. They are either a component of the notching device or are arranged again in a separate device, wherein the location information is then transmitted to the film transport and positioning device in the notching device, which can be carried out as described in the particular case of the already mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 5,285,235.
In U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/384,221 (corresponding to European Patent Application No. 98 116 162.3), the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, there is described a situation typical for the photo finishing practice. A developed photographic film is unwound from a roll, sequentially guided through a photoelectric scanning device (film scanner) and a notching device, and finally rolled up again on a roll. The scanning device and the notching device are mechanically decoupled by means of dynamic loops. As a result of this mechanical decoupling, the individual image locations of the film need to be positioned independently of each other both in the scanning device and in the notching device.
Based on the prior art, it is an object of the present invention to simplify the photoelectric scanning photographic image acquisition (e.g. of a photographic medium, such as photographic film) and the provision of positioning notches, and in doing so, to particularly reduce the apparatus cost for the positioning of the mediums (e.g. films) or the images contained thereon.
In accordance with the invention, the film notching device is directly integral with the scanning device, so that the positioning of the films or the images contained thereon only needs to be carried out once. Thus, the required apparatus and the technical control needed for the positioning is substantially reduced when compared to separate scanning and notching devices. Furthermore, the scanning device in accordance with the invention requires substantially less room than two separate devices, which is particularly significant when arranging the device within a copier apparatus.